Letter to Anna: the Story of Journalist Politkovskaya’s Death

Aug 02, 2008

by *Eric Bergkraut*

The veteran Swiss director knew Politkovskaya personally and shows her in full humanity – complete with lively humour and obsessive personality – in a film that combines footage of the journalist and interviews with family and colleagues after her assassination in the stairwell of her Moscow apartment building. From the earliest days of the Chechen war, Politkovskaya was the one journalist who tirelessly exposed its horrors and manipulation by the Moscow political class. Working with colleagues at the independent Novaya Gazeta, she knew the fatality rate of Russian journalists was one of the highest in the world. A startling portrait not only of someone prepared to say ‘no’, but of the ruthlessness and impunity that may greet this democratic obstinacy.